Monthly Archives: May 2008

It’s Growing.

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Well, I’m up to 8 chapters “finished” out of 16 (yes, the number of chapters has gone up, too) to 1st-draft standards.

To combat my inner editor I’ve been making notes about what I need to clean up the next time around.

For example,

Chapter 7, The Fitting:

  • Focus on narrowing POV and keeping it consistent.
  • Eliminate any simpering or mooning over each other.  Keep this as close to a “business” relationship as possible, otherwise, we can’t believe Torb’s not a jerk in Chapter 9.

He’s really not, and imagining he is doesn’t advance the story.

  • clarify queen’s attitude toward MC
  • Clarify her relationship with her son

Now for a complete change of pace I need to sit down and decide what I’m doing with a dozen 2 to 6-year-olds for an hour tomorrow.

Yin and Yang?

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I found a way to avert a tragedy in part-2 (one less person to die!), but the funny thing is that keeping him alive has made me more willing to consider killing-off somebody else I’ve been waffling on.

How awful is that!

~

My logical part tells me that I ought just to focus on the first part till that’s done, but since the story’s basically a single organism to me, I can’t really pick which part grows at any random time.

When I’m writing, sure, but brain flashes and deepening connections?  Those are less volitional at this point.

~

I’d rather not lose any characters– they are like my friends, if not my “babies”– but I’m trying to remain open and honest about what best serves the story.

No casualties in in part one, though (according to the plan as it stands).

A Real Outline

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Hoo—

13 chapters sounds like a much more manageable animal than 43 chapters, doesn’t it.

Doesn’t it?

I just finished running through my 2-part idea and broke part-one into identifiable units.

Once they’re done being written (6 of the 13 are written, 2 more roughed in) I’m going to have to re-evaluate if this will work as a self-contained story.

It does have the unfortunate feel of an ending lying in wait for a sequel, but for the length of this project I believe that was unavoidable.

I always feel better when I can estimate a path (even if I improvise before the end) so I’m not “riding blind.”

“We’ve a long road ahead of us.”

“How long?” Kate asked promptly.

One of her chief trials during the last six days had been riding blind into completely strange country.

It had not been so bad at first… while she could still recognize the names on signposts… But early that morning they had turned off the road and ridden away over a desolate moor seamed with ridges and outcroppings of rock, as if the bones of the land were forcing their way through it.

From The Perilous Gard

Subtext: We aren’t arguing about what we’re arguing about.

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Our pre-marital counselor seemed both to be pleased we were getting married and feeling somehow we needed encouragement (being two youngish college kids?).

More than once he repeated (I think) to reassure us, “Two can live more cheaply than one.”

When he first said this I tried, tentatively, to correct him; pointing out that it might be cheaper per person, but it didn’t seem logical that two could together cost less than one.

He insisted, without explaining his reasons, sparking my resistance.

I protested then that while it may be true for some, it certainly couldn’t be true for us, as I lived (cost-free) with my parents, and Jay lived with 3 roommates who split costs of rent and utilities.

He seemed not to hear my arguments, and never changed his line.

I eventually let it go because it didn’t seem important enough to keep arguing about, but I never believed him.

Learning later about subtexts— the idea that what’s being said is not what’s really being said (*sigh*)— I recognized an entirely different argument could have been taking place: one our counselor felt strongly about and never occurred to us.

He must counsel many couples who fear the money-side of marriage; people who delay getting married until they think they can better “afford” it.

I believe now that he was trying to reassure us that we could do this marriage-thing (financially speaking), and when I suggested he was wrong, he objected strongly.

Perhaps he didn’t hear me objecting to his words, but to his message.

It’s made me re-think a number of disagreements since then.

~

I’ve read writing books that say the best stories are full of this stuff.  I can imagine it adds a lot for the people who are paying attention, but just now I still think it can’t be critical to the story.

I think it takes a measure of experience in the reader before subtexts are consistantly able to be decoded, so I appreciate dialogue that’s accessible the first time through.

These are the stories (that I like best) where you understand more and deeper when you read again.

In Case Anyone was Curious

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The new opening I excerpted earlier has grown rapidly and well.

I’ve integrated two scenes so far from the first draft, changing POV on one and picking up the pace on the other.

It’s sitting just under 10,000 words right now, with roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the material being new with this revision.

Feeling very excited with the new angle.

The interesting thing to me (after beginning to toy with the idea of two books for this story) is that I may have found another blurb that lets me conceal the beauty and the beast angle in the description.

Not having to hand the reader my first major plot point makes me more comfortable with letting things lay as they fall.

~

Is anyone here familiar with the story of The Goose Girl?

Shannon Hale expanded it into a very good novel (though, keeping with the disappointing pattern of my other favorites the opening seemed too slow to be perfect).

Knowing the original story I knew the big shift happens when the maid steals the identity of the princess (sorry for those of you I killed it for).

Hale has some intriguing and well-written stuff before that big plot-point but I couldn’t properly enjoy it because I knew the event that was coming and guessed the real ingenuity would be after that.

That’s the difficulty I have with revealing in the blurb the girl gets her prince before the end of the story, because then (perhaps because this isn’t the romantic novel, Kaye?) there’s so much tension lost.

The road may wind, but it must also have been polished, because everything looks just a little too clean.

That would be my own fault, of course, but splitting the book without changing anything else lifted that feeling for me.  I’m still deciding what that means.

~

I think it’s way-cool that I get more scenes with the snake in this version, and I want the get-together question to be a little more hairy than your average RomCom.

Guessing ahead doesn’t bother me, but skipping without missing anything… That kind of defeats the point of creating the scene, right?

Prince Caspian Movie: my thoughts

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Well, I knew they’d have to modernize it, and pick up the pace and some loose-ends (I think many of my favorite books would never be published if they were written this century), but still I was disappointed.

Just a little, maybe, like when you take a bite out of something and find it’s hollow.  It doesn’t taste bad, it really is fine for what it is, but it’s less substantial than I’d expected.

Jay’s concise evaluation:

There were so many thumbs-up and thumbs-down it kind-of came out as neutral.

Only fair to say *Spoiler Warning* and break here, but I hope you come back when you’ve seen the movie and tell me what you thought.

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For The Flourishing Mother.

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I’ve always loved your blog‘s name.

It’s a meme, but as I want to do it I’ll find a way to make it belong on Untangling instead of SnowFairy. ;)

Six Quirky Things about You (Note it doesn’t define *quirky*)
Here are the rules:

* Link the person who tagged you.
* Mention the rules in your blog.
* Tell about six unspectacular quirks of yours.
* Tag a new set of six following bloggers by linking them

Anyone who’s read here long knows I’ll disobey that last edict (anyone who wants it is welcome, but I won’t make assignments).

1. One thing I’ve done all my life is make “soundtracks” to the stories in my head.

As a child this meant everything was recorded off of records– mainly Don Fransisco, Keith Green, Roar of Love, and a few others– because we didn’t have a double cassette deck.

Until my computer and iPod got out of sinc I made lists there for each project I was working on (two novels, in particular) and now I’ve got playlists on YouTube for most of my major characters.

2. I change the radio station within a few bars of intro if I know there’s a line of lyric in it that I don’t want my kids to hear.

3. I sometimes don’t trust my judgment of whether a song sounds good because music is such a whole-package experience for me.

e.g. I love this song (even though tonight was the first time I heard it) because the voice, delivery and rhythms are the stuff of my early memories. Have no idea if it’s a quality song, just know I like it.

4.  I like the Willow Tree figurines.  This one is by my computer (or, at this moment my sewing machine, which has usurped my laptop’s position of honor/usefulness):

5.  I can’t not-create.  While my computer-time was on moratorium I took on the project of making costumes for a Renaissance Faire coming up next month.  Half-way through Natasha’s indigo princess gown since yesterday afternoon.  More about that some other time.

Jay hid my laptop most of last week, along with his big computer-screen and I, obeying the spirit of the law rather than the letter, resisted looking for them.

I didn’t have my novel to peck at, and the zeal with which I dove into sewing (which I haven’t touched in literally a year) made me think of how much sewing I did before I wrote regularly.

Back when clean-up wasn’t an issue…

6.  I label my movies for what age I think my children should be before I let them watch something.  I needed a way to hold myself accountable when I want to watch something they shouldn’t see.